Liya & Luca

Although Luca is a paid app and Liya is free, both share the same database connector frameworks that allow the apps to access MySQL, Postgres, SQLite and, now, even MariaDB databases.

The value of keeping Liya free is that it's become very popular, especially among other software developers.

Liya is today at the top 29th position among US business Mac apps, and is consistently within the top 20 positions in places like Japan, South Korea, Germany and Israel—places where you're likely to get quite sophisticated users.

And because these developers push the use of the Liya further and deeper than any Luca user, more bugs surface and get reported about the quality of our very crucial database connectors than if I didn't have Liya widely-used in the first place.

I wouldn't have been able to spot all the date—and especially time-stamp—handling bugs in Postgres and SQLite, if it's just me and Hai Hwee working on Luca. You need a wide net of other users working on a wider-range of their own stuff to push the use of the database connectors to the limits.

And because we've fixed another one of these quite subtle date-time handling bugs, I've just updated Luca for Mountain Lion to 5.0.2.

I couldn't over-emphasise how crucial these database connectors are. They're what allows Luca to tap on to SQL databases, wherever in the world these databases are, and from whatever Mac OS X or iOS device the user happens to be running an app like Luca on.

Since the days when we were 4D (4th Dimension) developers and had to rely on third-party developers for 4D for Oracle, etc, (and to pay through our noses for them), I've been determined to build these connectors ourselves—to control their quality, their speed, and their dependability in mapping data values and data types between the client and its permanent data store.

We've reached this stage of control over our own work and I want to build on them to improve Luca and more apps like Luca in the coming months. Otherwise we would have wasted all these earlier years of hard work.

Liya 2.0.8

I've just released version 2.0.8 of Liya. It includes one bug fix for SQLite date field handling. And I now make Liya able to open connections to MySQL and PostgreSQL databases on non-standard ports.

This version has also been tested to work with Mariadb databases. And of course, it will also work on Mountain Lion.

I'm now ready to make Pref Panes for MySQL, PostgreSQL and MariaDB that will allow the user to start up the databases on non-standard ports. The primary motivation is so that users can fire up MySQL and MariaDB simultaneously. Currently, MariaDB being a "drop-in replacement" for MySQL, uses the exact same port as MySQL. If you want to have both databases running simultaneously, one or the other has to work on a different port.

And I've just submitted it to the Mac App Store. The last time, it took more than two weeks to get reviewed and approved. Let's see how long it takes this time.